


Gated Frontier

by JBK405



Category: Frontier (TV 2016), Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, Language Barrier, Native American/First Nations Culture, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 17:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16876926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JBK405/pseuds/JBK405
Summary: Major Samantha Carter is trapped on an alien planet without support when Goa'uld forces arrive and separate her from the rest of SG-1.  Running into Sokanon, an inhabitant of the planet who seems to hate the Goa'uld as much as she could, they need to evade capture and find a way to either escape or strike back.





	Gated Frontier

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during season seven of _Stargate SG-1_ , between the episodes "Grace" and "Chimera" (Nebulously around the time of "Fallout"). This obviously would not line up directly with the timeline of _Frontier_ , but character-wise it's during season three, after Sokanon has realized that her goals and Michael Smyth's are inherently incompatible.

Watching the Al'kesh slow until it hung stationary over the village, Major Samantha Carter kept herself from swearing with the thought that she had to stay undetected.  Colonel O'Neill had radioed before he had been forced back through the gate that there were already Jaffa searching the woods, and if any of them learned where she was -- if they even learned with certainty that she was out there at all -- the odds of her remaining at liberty until the SGC could mount a rescue were slim-to-none.  So she kept herself from making any noise at all, and slowly crept deeper into the foliage that encircled the village.

Despite the danger she was facing she wasn't overly concerned.  No more than usual, anyway.  Sad to say, this situation -- stranded on an alien planet with enemy forces beating the trees -- had become almost routine over the past seven years.  With her standard kit she had supplies to last her for a few days without worrying about hunger, and the one Al'kesh that had shown up did not seem to be involved in searching the area.  Unless a lot more Jaffa had come through the gate than Colonel O'Neill had seen she should not have much difficulty remaining undiscovered in what looked like an undeveloped tract of forest.  So her concern still fell far short from fear.  More than anything, what she felt was embarrassment that she and the rest of SG-1 had been caught so exposed like this, especially when the locals had warned them that the Goa'uld were coming.

The communication barrier had been the problem, and now Samantha felt chagrined at the way she had teased Daniel over finally running into a language where he wasn't fluent.  She had laughed when he mumbled something about specializing in the other hemisphere, but now it didn’t seem so funny.  They had thought the locals were just trying to relay some myth or legend, some vague prophecy about doom that SG-1 had inadvertently reminded them of.  That had happened many times before when they had been mistaken for gods or demons or harbingers after coming through the stargate.  But now it was obvious that their concerns had been more immediate.

It didn’t make any sense, though.  As far as they could tell there was no Goa’uld presence on the planet, nor the remains of a recent activity.  No abandoned temples, no Jaffa barracks, not even an old naquadah mine lost in the jungle.  The locals said they hadn’t been seen for nearly a generation.  So what were the Goa’uld here _for_?  And how did the locals know they were coming?  There hadn’t been panic or agitation like they had suddenly learned of an invasion, they had been almost relaxed.  No….not “relaxed”, but resigned.  Or at least something close to it.  They knew the Goa’uld were coming, and they had known for a long time.  Long enough for the fear to blend into a general apprehension as they got on with the rest of their lives.

So now Samantha was working her way deeper into the woods, trying to put more distance between herself and the village.  It would take some time for General Hammond to prep a proper response team, maybe even a day or two given the logistical problems the Al’kesh would offer if it kept its position, and her best course of action would be to simply wait it out.  If the Jaffa thought that all of SG-1 had made it through the gate they probably wouldn’t search too far into the surrounding wilderness, and she still had several miles to go before she would risk being out of range of radio communication. Despite the urge to _do something_ that was hovering in her mind she knew that attempting to force passage through the gate by herself would likely just get her killed, so she focused on quiet, undetected progress in a straight line, with one eye on the ground in front of her and the other scanning for signs of pursuit.

It was close to an hour into her progress that she heard the telltale broken stick _crack_ behind her.

* * *

 

As she spun around, thumbing the safety off her rifle as she raised it to her shoulder, Carter couldn't help but feel surprised that the Jaffa had managed to sneak up on her.  It wasn’t that Jaffa couldn’t be stealthy, she had seen Teal’c move through the woods with such ease that she couldn’t track him even knowing where he was going, but they often _wouldn’t_.  It seemed to be part and parcel of the Goa’uld need to be bombastic and terrifying that they deployed their forces in overt maneuvers with as much noise as possible.  They still communicated with _trumpets_ in the field, when even the Goa’uld’s idiosyncratic technology base could have produced portable communicators for their footsoldiers.  That the Jaffa here would eschew their standard tactics for a camouflage approach was an idea she had discarded as unlikely, and now Carter realized that she had apparently been wrong again.

Except not this time.  Instead of staring at the staff weapons of a Jaffa patrol she found herself facing a woman almost hidden in the underbrush, so completely obscured that Carter must have walked right past her seconds ago and not even noticed her.  Now she was risen in a half-crouch, and she had a bow half-drawn in front of her with the arrow bearing directly at Carter’s chest.

“Whoa there,” Carter breathed, halting her trigger squeeze just at the edge as she lined up on the other woman.  “I’m a friend.”

The other woman’s expression didn’t so much as flicker, and Carter realized that like everybody else on the planet she wouldn’t understand her.  So she did what people always did in situations like this, she said it slower and more simply, hoping that her tone would help convey what the words themselves wouldn’t.  “Friend.”  She didn’t want to actually lower her rifle in case this woman was somehow working for the Goa’uld, but she let it dip just a little bit.  Hopefully enough to get the message across.

The other woman’s glance darted up and down quickly, and then she spoke.  It sounded urgent, but Carter could only shake her head in incomprehension.  She thought it was the same language that the villagers had spoken, which Daniel had described as likely being a derivation of an Algonquian dialect, but unfortunately being able to name it didn’t help at all.  After a beat the woman spoke again, and to Carter it sounded slightly different.  Maybe a different dialect, but for all Carter could tell it might have just been because she was more agitated.  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand you.”

They stood facing each other silently for a moment, just long enough for Carter to begin to think they were at an impasse, when the woman’s expression changed ever-so-slightly and she spoke again.  This time in a language that Carter could recognize.  “ _Tal shal mak_ ,” she said.  In Goa’uld.

* * *

 

Over the years Carter had picked up a smattering of Goa’uld, primarily scientific terminology as she grew more familiar with their technology and worked with their computer systems.  Combined with the memories of Jolinar she had a crude – _very_ crude – understanding of the language.  Not enough to hold any kind of intelligent conversation, but she could at least pick up the meaning, and she could tell when she was being asked to identify herself.

“Major Samantha Carter,” she offered.  “Sam.   _Tek ma tek_.”

The other woman clearly understood her, but the reaction was not what Carter had hoped for.  Instead of relaxing, the other woman completed her bow pull to a full draw, and almost barked as she demanded “ _Onak sha kree! Shal goa'uld!”_   The flicker of emotion that Carter had seen was now blossomed into a mask of determined hatred.

That sentence was too much for Carter to make sense of, but the hate twisting her expression was all too clear, and Carter realized that letting this woman think she was somehow affiliated with the Goa’uld would not be a good way to proceed.  “ _Arik kek_ ,” she tried, hoping it meant ‘don’t shoot’ like she thought, before bringing out the one sentence she had heard often enough to be confident about.  “ _Shel kek nem ron_.”  That at least got the woman to pause, just as she seemed ready to loose the arrow.

“I’m not with the Goa’uld…uh, _tok Goa’uld._   Why don’t we both lower our weapons?  Let’s talk this out before anybody gets hurt.”  She let her left hand rotate off the foregrip so she could splay her fingers and slowly waved them towards the ground.  After a beat she let the rifle lower completely until it was resting on its strap and she could extend her left hand.  She hoped that the other woman didn’t notice that she kept her right hand securely around the grip just in case (“trust, but verify” had been drilled into her over and over again long before she had joined the SGC).  Apparently the message got across, as a moment later the woman let her tense draw relax, resuming the half-draw stance she had been in when Carter first noticed her.

Taking that as a good sign – at least as good as somebody switching back the safety – Carter smiled.  “Okay, that’s a start.”  Glancing around, suddenly re-aware that voices could carry a lot further in the wilds than people expect, especially when they were the only people speaking for miles around, she felt the urge to move and find a better location for this discussion.  “We shouldn’t stand around here like this, we need to go.  _Kree_ …uh….” She couldn’t think of the Goa’uld word for ‘leave’, or even ‘hide’ or ‘walk’, but the other woman seemed to understand the point regardless.  After a quick glance around herself she let her draw completely relax, and then turned towards what seemed to Carter like a random point in the woods, but which presumably lead to a path or shelter of some kind.

Gesturing forward she began to make her way through the trees, much more silently than Carter herself could manage, and barely disturbing the foliage.  If she hadn’t been following her Carter didn’t think she would have even been able to tell that somebody crossed this way at all.  Trying to match her movements close enough to limit her own trail, Carter realized that the other woman had never identified herself during their exchange.  “ _Tal shal mak?_ ”

Without stopping, the other woman gave back a one word reply.  “Sokanon.”


End file.
